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TENNESSEE |
“[Barbecue] gets all the effect from your smoke. The salt is put on there early enough that it soaks in and we cook it long enough for your smoke to penetrate the meat. That’s the only thing I do; I just put it on and cook it.” – Richard Hodge
Richard’s Bar-B-Que
413 W. Jackson St.
Bolivar, TN 38008
(731) 658-7652
Is it any wonder that barbecue is such a mythologized food? Creation stories abound, mystical sauce recipes are traded and kept forever secret, and stories of the magnitude of out-of-control pit fires are traded like big-fish tales.
Richard Hodge, from tiny Hornsby, Tennessee, grew up watching the men—the elders—in his area gather every Fourth of July to cook whole hogs in big holes in the ground, watching them smoke all night long. He has cooked shoulders for over twenty years at his third establishment, this eponymous pit-house in Bolivar. Richard’s slogan is pork as “Sweet and Tender as a Mother’s Love.”
What follows is a portion of the original interview that has been edited for length. To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.
Subject: Richard Hodge
Date: August 2, 2008
Location: Richard’s Bar-B-Que – Bolivar, TN
Interviewer & Photographer: Rien T. Fertel
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Rien T. Fertel: This is Rien Fertel with the Southern Foodways Alliance. It is August 2, 2008, almost 1 o'clock. I’m in Bolivar, Tennessee at Richard’s Barbecue with Mr. Richard Hodge. I’m going to have him introduce himself and give us his birth date.
Richard Hodge: My name is Richard Hodge. My birth date is November 10, 1943.
How long has Richard’s Barbecue been around?
We’ve been here about 20 years, a little over 20 years.
Have you owned other restaurants before this or ran other restaurants?
I’ve—I’ve had three places that I didn’t cook at as long as I have had here, and sold both of them.
What were the names of those restaurants and where were they?
My first one was kind of a nickname. It started out as a joke. We put up a 16-foot metal outbuilding and converted it into a little cafeteria type thing. And I kept that opened for about—I guess about three years and then sold it.
What was the name of it?
Uncle Odd’s. It was—it was named after the cartoon character. [Laughs] … It was on Highway 64 East, and the other one I actually didn’t have a name for it. It was one of those quick pickup type jobs. I was out of a job and I thought I’d make me one so I put one of those in until I could find a job. I later figured out I could do a little better financially if I opened another place. So that’s how I wound up here.
And did you serve barbecue at those other two places, or was it other types of food?
Barbecue was the only thing we had—just strictly a shoulder barbecue.
Where did you grow up?
I was born in Hornsby, Tennessee and they had an annual 4th of July picnic for the community and the entire West Tennessee would show up at it. It would literally be hundreds of people and the elders would get under a barn in case it rained and dig a hole in the ground and put their pigs on and stay with them all night. I’d go up there when I was very young and kind of enthused about what they were doing and watched to see how the process was done, and it kind of went from there.
Would they cook whole hogs?
Yeah; they—they cooked whole hogs on it but they may have 15 to 20 hogs on under that barn and it would be God knows how many of them sitting around there watching them. Each one of them had their own particular job to do.
Did you ever get to help as a youngster or was it just strictly watching?
No; they wouldn’t let anybody—anybody help. You could watch all you wanted but you couldn’t—they wouldn’t let anybody but them do that.
And these men, were they farmers? What—do you remember anything about them?
All of them were farmers, yeah; most of them older—older type people who had been doing it for years.
Was there a sauce used?
Well I do it the same way as they did, a direct—direct heat using the wood product. The sauce they used was more of a vinegar—it wasn’t—it wasn’t a real thick sauce but it was—the best I remember it was good sauce.
Did the women of that town or the area have anything to do with it? Did they make any food?
Yeah; the women—the women did the potato salad and slaw and—and all the trimmings. They made ice-cream. I don't know how many containers of ice-cream they would have but it would be somebody making ice-cream all day.
And so what year or about how long ago did you open your first restaurant that you talked about?
The first restaurant was 1978.
Was it hard those first years in barbecue or did you know enough? Did you have to teach yourself?
No; pretty well. I remembered how the old people had done it and built my pit and went right to it.
And so the pit that you use today is similar to the pit you used back in ’78?
Yeah; it’s—it’s identical. … I didn’t build it myself; I had—as a matter of fact, Glen helped me build it. The pit is probably—how tall is the block—eight inches? My pit is 24-inches from the ground in height; it’s four-foot wide; the longest pit I have is approximately 16-eet long and I have one pit that is an eight-foot pit and four-foot wide, the same height. I figure with as much heat as you have in your blocks and each block is filled with concrete, if you—building it that height will eliminate the chances of you burning your meat. If you build it closer you’re going to have more exposure to your heat and you have to watch it more closely. … The walls of your pit will—they’ll heat up just like a—the same basis as an oven. Once you get—once you get your cinders in underneath your meat it warms your wall up and then you can kind of back off on your—your heat and have less chances of actually scorching your meat. It will turn out just kind of golden brown instead of having the burned look to it.
Why do you cook shoulders and not butts?
To start with I don't like butts. If I were using a gas grill butts would probably be fine; direct heat you’re actually cooking the butt and the shank portion of it at the same time. You have more lean meat actually from the butt part down to the shank than you do with the butt only and your yield out of a butt by itself is lots less than you will on a whole shoulder and you do get the white meat out of a whole shoulder.
Did you ever cook and sell whole hogs?
I—I’ve cooked whole hogs but I just—our demand—I can cook approximately three shoulders for the belly part which you get nothing. I can use—I can use that belly part to put two to three shoulders and have lots more barbecue at the end of the day than I can with the fatty part of that hog. But we do cook the ribs; with the belly part all you’re getting is rib anyway. … We do cook ribs for people that do want ribs. And that’s—that’s mainly—and you have—with a whole hog you have—if you bust that—break that skin when you turn that meat with direct heat, your pit is going to stay on fire all night long. You’ve got to watch it very close. … We actually sold the whole hog product over here. … If I run across a pretty good deal on the price of a whole hog or find somebody that needs to get rid of some I’d take it off their hands.
How long do the shoulders cook for?
I cook the shoulders approximately six hours; I look at them. If the bone is pulled away from the shoulder I’ll turn it. If it’s not I’ll cook it on another—‘til seven hours is up. It just mainly bases on that—on that shoulder bone. If it’s pulled away from the meat a little it’s ready to turn. Then cook it slow heat for about seven to eight more hours.
And the shoulders are they salted or spiced beforehand?
Well, if I was doing a competition shoulder I would cook them for—I’d salt them, put those things on; when I’d turn them I would use a vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, salt, and pepper with a vegetable oil base—sauce and I’d do that probably three to four times before they actually got done. It will soak that flavor in around that bone area and then also soak it in through the skin on the outside of it.
But you’re saying here when the shoulders that you serve to your customers here they’re not salted?
No; they’re always salted.
And what about the ribs? Are they prepared beforehand?
Okay; the ribs—I—I use my own dry rub on that and it consists of lemon pepper, Cajun seasoning, lemon pepper, and I’ve got two different types of Cajun seasoning in there and then we sauce them down after they get done.
How would you describe your clientele that eats here? You’re a very busy place. Is it mostly locals?
Uh-uh not necessarily; we get a lot of people on Saturday—who ride out from Memphis or Jackson and come down and sit at the picnic table and sit out there and have their own private little party. But my clientele you may have a man that owns 10,000 acres; I had a man in this room that we’re in back here now that had sold a business for $663 million. That was a couple of weeks ago. I’ve had Jerry Lee Lewis back here. Yeah; it’s—you may have the brokest person that’s—you’ve seen in town or anywhere standing up there next to the judge or a doctor or anybody.
What is it about barbecue that is so important to this part of Tennessee?
I’m sorry; I don't think I can answer that one. It’s just—it’s just an old Southern tradition I guess.
Do you think Tennessee barbecue comes from farms and that tradition that you grew up with?
I understood the way that barbecue was established was people used to let their hogs run loose out in the yard sometimes. And a house fire trapped some hogs underneath it and when the fire was out, somehow they decided to sample the meat and that’s where—where I heard the origin of barbecue came from. And it was in the South.
How would you describe the sauce that you serve here?
It’s a sweet, spicy—I use—I use three different type spices in it and I use half vinegar and half ketchup. … It’s one of them I created myself. I was told by a man one time what to put in it but he wouldn’t tell me how to make it.
Who was this man?
Well that deer up there on that wall, I killed and a friend of mine wanted a hind quarter of deer and he duck hunted, so he traded me three ducks and a gallon of barbecue sauce for the hind quarter of that deer. And the next time I saw him I wanted to know how to make that sauce. And he said I’ll tell you what I put in it but I’m not going to tell you how to make it. He said if you can come up with a recipe—so about five years later I started gathering up all the stuff I remembered that he made and started experimenting with it and about 500-gallons later I finally come up with a—a pretty good sauce.
So what makes the barbecue that you serve here good? Why do you think it’s good?
Huh, I guess probably the way we cook it; it’s cooked like I say direct. It gets all the effect from your smoke. The salt is put on there early enough that it soaks in and we cook it long enough for your smoke to penetrate the meat. That’s—that’s the only thing I—that’s the only thing I do; I just put it on and cook it.
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To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.
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